Introduction
Onidel Cloud offers hourly billing for Cloud Servers in select locations, allowing you to pay based on how long your services are provisioned rather than committing to a fixed monthly billing cycle.
Hourly billing uses a postpaid billing model. Usage charges accrue throughout the billing period and are invoiced when your account reaches its billing threshold or at the beginning of the following month.
We changed our hourly billing system to a postpaid model on 1 September 2026.
Accounts created before this date will continue to use the prepaid billing model by default. Existing customers may choose to switch their account to the postpaid billing model.
Eligibility
To be eligible for provisioning VMs on an hourly billing cycle, customers must:
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Have a saved payment method: A valid payment method must be added to your account.
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Complete the minimum one-time recharge: A one-time minimum account recharge is required before hourly billing can be activated.
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Meet any applicable account verification requirements: Additional verification may be required depending on your account and usage.
Once hourly billing has been activated, you can provision eligible services using the hourly billing cycle, subject to your account's resource limits.
How am I billed for my VMs?
The hourly rate is calculated by dividing the monthly rate by 672 hours (28 days). If your VM remains online for more than 672 hours within a calendar month, you will only be billed the monthly rate. An invoice with accumulated charges will be generated on the 1st of each month for your reference.
If you upgrade or downgrade your VM, it will incur one full hour's charge at the current rate before the update is applied, which may result in charges exceeding 672 hours in months when resizing occurs.
VMs in a stopped state continue to reserve dedicated system resources and will incur charges until they are destroyed. To stop accruing charges for a VM, please terminate the service.
When will I be invoiced?
Hourly usage is generally invoiced on the first day of the following month, provided your accrued charges remain below your account's billing threshold.
All accounts initially have a billing threshold of A$5, US$5, or €5, depending on the account currency. If your accrued usage reaches this threshold before the end of the month, an invoice will be generated immediately.
After successful payment, your account will progressively move through the following billing thresholds:
5 → 20 → 50 → 150 → 400 → 1,000 → 2,500 → 5,000
The applicable amount is denominated in your account currency.
For example, if your current billing threshold is A$50, an invoice will be generated once your accrued, uninvoiced hourly usage reaches A$50. After the invoice is successfully paid, your account may be moved to the next threshold.
Each invoice provides an itemised breakdown of the accrued service usage and corresponding charges. Invoices are due and payable immediately upon receipt.
Is there a minimum invoice amount?
Yes. The minimum invoice amount for hourly usage is A$3, US$3, or €3, depending on your account currency.
If your accrued usage at the end of the month is below this amount, it will not be invoiced immediately. Instead, the balance will be carried forward and combined with subsequent usage until the minimum invoice amount is reached.
What happens if I upgrade or downgrade my server?
If you change your server's plan during a billing cycle, the applicable hourly rate will be recalculated from the time the change takes effect.
Your invoice will itemise the usage separately. Charges under the previous plan will be shown up to the time of the change, and a new line item will show usage accrued under the new plan and its corresponding hourly rate.
As a result, services that undergo plan changes may have multiple usage line items on the same invoice.
How is bandwidth usage calculated?
Bandwidth usage is calculated based on both inbound and outbound traffic.
Bandwidth allocations are pooled across eligible Cloud Servers within the same region. For more information, please refer to Data Transfer (Bandwidth) Pooling.
How are bandwidth caps calculated?
For hourly-billed services, monthly bandwidth allocations are distributed across 672 hours. Each VM accrues a portion of its monthly bandwidth allocation for every hour it remains provisioned.
For example, if a VM includes 8 TB of monthly bandwidth:
8 TB ÷ 672 = approximately 11.9 GB of bandwidth allocation per hour
After running for 10 hours, the VM would therefore have accrued approximately 119 GB of included bandwidth.
How bandwidth overages are assessed depends on your account's billing model:
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Prepaid billing: For accounts that remain on the prepaid billing model from before 1 September 2026, bandwidth usage is evaluated against your accrued allocation continuously. If your usage exceeds your allocated bandwidth at any point, an overage charge will apply.
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Postpaid billing: For accounts using the postpaid billing model, your total bandwidth usage is evaluated at the end of each month against your total accrued bandwidth allocation. Any usage exceeding the available allocation will be charged as bandwidth overage on your invoice.
The monthly bandwidth allowance depends on the VM plan. If you upgrade or downgrade your VM, bandwidth will accrue according to the allocation included with each plan for the period during which that plan was active.
Bandwidth allocations are pooled across eligible Cloud Servers within the same region as described in Data Transfer (Bandwidth) Pooling
What is the bandwidth overage rate?
Bandwidth usage exceeding your included allocation is charged at $0.01 per GB.
You can also purchase additional bandwidth at a lower rate of $3.50 per TB - How to purchase extra bandwidth
What are the default resource limits?
New accounts have limits on hourly-billed resources. These limits help us manage platform capacity and reduce the risk of abuse.
The default limits are currently:
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$25 maximum monthly spend across all hourly-billed instances
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Up to 5 concurrent hourly-billed VMs per account
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Up to 10 hourly-billed VM deployments per day
You can review your current resource limits from the Resource Limits page in your Onidel Cloud account.
How can I increase my account resource limits?
Your account may become eligible for higher limits as you establish a credible usage and payment history with Onidel Cloud.
If you require additional capacity, please open a support ticket and provide details about your use case and expected resource requirements. Our team will review the request based on your account history, intended workload, and available platform capacity.
Limit increases are reviewed individually and are not guaranteed.